Home Secretary Sajid Javid has defended a comment in which he called members of a Huddersfield grooming gang "sick Asian paedophiles".

The Rochdale-born politician, who is of Pakistani heritage, defended highlighting the ethnicity of grooming gangs and stressed the need to acknowledge the background of the grooming gangs rather than ignore it.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said that ignoring the ethnicity of such criminals gives "oxygen" to extremists.

Asked if he was worried that his comments might fuel hate crimes, he said: "I'm very much aware of the need for politicians to be careful with language as well as what they do.

"When it comes to gang-based child exploitation it is self-evident to anyone who cares to look that if you look at all the recent high-profile cases there is a high proportion of men that are of Pakistani heritage."

He said "there could be - and I'm not saying there are - some cultural reasons from the community that those men came from that could lead to this type of behaviour".

"For me to rule something out just because it would be considered sensitive would be wrong," Mr Javid said.

"If I had ignored it, or been seen to ignore, that is exactly what I think extremists would like to see in this country.

"It would give them oxygen and I refuse to do that."

Home Secretary Sajid Javid

Mr Javid said officials were looking into the causes of gang-based child exploitation.

He said: "When I'm asking my officials to go away and do research to look into the causes of gang-based child exploitation, then I want them to leave no stone unturned and to look at everything.

"For me to rule something out just because it would be considered sensitive would be wrong.

"If I had ignored it, or been seen to ignore it, that is exactly what I think extremists would like to see in this country. It would give them oxygen and I refuse to do that."

Mr Javid also defended the Government's decision to strip some members of a Rochdale grooming gang of their British citizenship and deport them to Pakistan where they have dual citizenship.

Asked if he was concerned about the possible lack of control over paedophiles if they returned to Pakistan, Mr Javid insisted that his responsibility was to citizens in the UK.